RUSSIAN CAVALRY'S SWEEP OF GERMANS

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIII, Issue 124, 28 May 1942, Page 7

RUSSIAN CAVALRY'S SWEEP OF GERMANS

HEAVY DEATH TOLL

Huge Scale Of Air War

In South U.P.A. and Brittsdi Wireless. Rec. 1 p.m. LONDON, May 27. A Russian cavalry unit in a 40mile sweep on the southern front wiped out 2000 Germans. Marshal Timoshenko's troops on the Kharkov front are still making sbme small advance, but mainly they are consolidating positions already won. The newspaper Pravda says these positions are strongly held and Russian gunners are taking very heavy toll of German infantry. The past few days have been marked by the merciless extermination of German troops. The Soviet forces are up against the hard core of the German defence system, and the Germans are staking everything on preventing a break-through. Aircraft are being employed on a scale not previously seen in Russia. In general, nothing of importance has taken place outside the Kharkov region. The big battle is still at Isyum, south-east of Kharkov. The clash of war machines in this sector eclipses in ferocity anything seen in last, year's battles. The issue is still undecided. Dispatches from the front line say the initiative is still mainly in Russian hands. Cities Liberated The Soviet forces are making fierce thrusts which have won back a number of important positions. One Moscow message says they have liberated at least four cities in Kharkov Province and a large number of settlements. Stores have been reopened and large consignments of goods have been sent to all the liberated districts. Guerillas on the Leningrad front surprised a sleeping garrison numbering 400, and after throwing grenades into the sleeping quarters, the guerillas mowed down the panicstricken Germans with tommy-suns killing 200. S ' The important part played by Soviet guerillas in the Russo-Ger-man war can be appreciated from the fact that since the beginning of the war over 15,000 Germans and their agents have been killed in the Smolensk province. Twentv-seven aircraft, 34 tanks, and 504 vehicles have also been destroyed, and several hundred inhabited* points have been liberated in the enemy's rear. The Soviet North Sea fleet have sunk half a million tons of German shipping since the outbreak, says the naval reviewer of the Moscow >*ews. In the last few days Russian submarines have sunk five large transports and two destroyers. Another correspondent says that in retaliation for the heavy blows of the Soviet northern fleet the Germans have intensified their attempt to raid Murmansk by air. In this sector heavy naval guns have dispersed several concentrations of enemy troops and have done other damage.